Amateur radio festival Hamfest comes home to Shelby, NC

The Shelby Hamfest is back. After five years of being held in Dallas, N.C., the amateur radio festival will return to the Cleveland County Fairgrounds during Labor Day weekend.

By Jessica Pickens Halifax Media Group

SHELBY, N.C. – The Shelby Hamfest is back.After five years of being held in Dallas, N.C., the amateur radio festival will return to the Cleveland County Fairgrounds during Labor Day weekend.“We are just tickled pink,” said Cleveland County Fairgrounds Manager Calvin Hastings. “We are very excited about it returning to the county for the community. People come from all over the United States and will bring in a lot of revenue to the county.”The Hamfest is the oldest and one of the largest gathering of amateur radio operators in the United States, O. Max Gardner III, legal representative of the Cleveland County Fair, wrote on The Star's Facebook page.“I can confirm that the Fair has signed an agreement with this group to return the event to Cleveland County during the Labor Day weekend for 2013 and thereafter,” Gardner wrote. “The Fair is grateful for the confidence the group has shown by agreeing to return. The annual Hamfest will bring thousands of consumers to Cleveland County and will have a major economic impact.”The inagural Shelby Hamfest was held in 1957 at Shelby City Park. The festival moved to Bracket City Park five years later and then to the Cleveland County Fairgrounds in 1979, said Shelby Amateur Radio Club President David Ledford.The Shelby Hamfest moved to Dallas in 2008 after contract disagreements between the Shelby Amateur Radio Club and the Cleveland County Fair Association, The Star previously reported.So why the return?“It was a group decision. It came down to we have reached the end of our five-year Gaston County contract and had been approached by the Cleveland County Fairgrounds,” said Shelby Hamfest chairman Todd Vickery.The club had their first meeting of the year Tuesday night and voted unanimously to bring the Hamfest back to Cleveland County.“The club is very positive and upbeat about it,” Vickery said. “It’s not something you can do overnight. It will be a challenge any time you move an event of that size.”The Hamfest usually draws between 6,000 and 12,000 each year, Vickery said.A formal announcement will be made by the Cleveland County Fairgrounds in the coming weeks, Hastings said.Ticket prices and fees will stay the same, Ledford said.“This is where the Hamfest was founded. In Cleveland County. In Shelby,” Ledford said. “We wanted it back home where it was meant to be.”The Shelby Hamfest 2013 is on August 31and September 1, 2013. For more information on how you can follow them, visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ShelbyHamfest Reporter Jessica Pickens writes for the Shelby Star in Shelby, N.C. She can be reached at 704-669-3332 or jpickens@shelbystar.com . Follow on Twitter at @StarJPickens.